“He married a princess and moved to Cadria,” Nicole finished for him.
“Exactly. So he’s running the European branch and it’s on me to keep the U.S. side running.” He shrugged. “It’s been busy and—”
“Weird without Garrett?” she asked. She knew Griffin and his twin were close. Having Garrett on the other side of the world must be hard.
“Yeah,” he admitted. His mouth quirked. “Sounds dumb to say it out loud, but not having him around feels strange. Of course, if you repeat that, I’ll deny it.”
“Understood.” She picked up her lemonade and took a sip. “Still, even with Garrett gone, you’ve got tons of family here.”
“You could say that again,” he mused. “Can’t throw a rock in California without hitting a King.” He winked and gave her a wide smile. “I know. I’ve tried.”
“I’ll bet.” Running her fingers up and down the sides of the icy-cold glass, Nicole said softly, “I’ve envied that. Such a big family. At the parties I’ve been to, you all seem to have so much fun when you’re together.”
“We do,” he said. “So, you don’t have a lot of family around here?”
She laughed a little. “Or anywhere else. My parents died when I was a kid and my grandparents went a few years ago.” She turned her head to look across the fence at her place, now empty and burned, and she hoped her grandparents didn’t know. Foolish, she thought, to worry about what they’d think of the accident, but her grandmother had loved that little kitchen. “They left me their house when they died.”
As if sensing her thoughts, Griffin said, “It’ll be back to normal in a couple of weeks, Nicole. Like the fire never happened.”
She smiled, but all she could think was, it had happened. And she knew it would be a long time before she would be able to forget what might have happened.
Four
Three days later, all Nicole could think was, thank God her laptop survived the fire.
With Connor at preschool, she was trying to catch up on work. She bent her head to the task of tallying up the billing for Comisky’s flowers and told herself she was lucky in a lot of ways. She and Connor were both safe. The fire had been contained in the kitchen. She had insurance—okay, yes, with a huge deductible that was going to eat up her pitifully small savings and force her to maneuver a loan—but still. Her computer was safe, which meant she could keep working and making a living. And she and her son had a place to stay that wasn’t costing them a fortune.
All good things.
The only downside…Griffin.
She stopped typing and sat back in her chair. Oh, he was trying to stay out of her way. She knew that. In the last three days, she’d only seen him at breakfast and at dinner. Otherwise, he was either in that damned hot tub or at the job site at her place or out in his car.
Probably best, she told herself firmly. Since the day he’d moved into Katie and Rafe’s house, she’d been on edge. Desires she’d thought long dead had come back to life with a vengeance and she couldn’t do anything with them.
Which had been making for some really annoying dreams.
In her dreams she felt Griffin’s hands moving over her body and ached for more. Then she woke up miserable and had to face him over the breakfast table and pretend that she wasn’t wondering just how good he was in bed.
Stupid.
He was probably great.
Didn’t matter. She couldn’t have an affair with Griffin. A, he wasn’t interested and B…
Nicole stopped typing, closed the file she couldn’t concentrate on and shut the lid of her laptop. There was a B, right? Of course there was a B. There had to be. But damned if she could think of what it was.
He was single—obviously. So was she. Okay, yes, she had Connor, but her son didn’t really come into this equation. She wasn’t looking for a husband and a father for Connor. All she was interested in was an actual orgasm. Or two. It had been way too long and Griffin was so…
For three nights she’d lain in her bed, knowing that Griffin was right across the hall, lying in his. For three nights she’d tossed and turned and then, when she finally did manage to fall asleep, there he was, starring in her dreams. Dreams that were hot enough to have her waking up needy and achy.
“How am I supposed to work when I can’t stop thinking about him?” Naturally, she didn’t have an answer to that question. Well, all right, she did know the answer, it just didn’t help her. Honestly, Nicole didn’t know what to do. She was stuck here until her house was habitable again, and it was another two weeks before Rafe and Katie would come home. Which meant she and Griffin were going to stay in close quarters.
So she had to find a way to deal with the situation.
Right now, just like every day, Griffin was next door with his cousin and the crew he had working on her kitchen, though Nicole hadn’t been back to her house since the first day the crew arrived. She’d stepped into the middle of controlled destruction and hadn’t lasted long. Watching the guys take sledgehammers to the cupboards and what remained of the ceiling had just been too traumatic for her.
With every swing of their hammers, they were knocking down years of memories, and Nicole had vowed not to go back until the job was done. She trusted the Kings to do a good job, and having her underfoot wouldn’t help anyway. So she worked with Lucas over the phone and by email and Griffin seemed determined to spend nearly every waking moment over there. Which was just one more good reason to avoid her own home.
Damn it. No matter what she did, her thoughts kept straying back to Griffin.
“This isn’t working at all,” she muttered and leaped up.
She grabbed her purse and car keys, then headed for the front door. What Nicole needed was some coffee and some common sense, not necessarily in that order. And since Katie was out of town, Nicole knew just where to go.
*
A half hour later, she was sitting at a small round table at Cupcake Central, owned by another of her clients and an old friend, Sandy Cannon.
“Your problem is, you’re overthinking it,” Sandy said, pausing for a sip of her latte. “I mean, he’s gorgeous, so are you—”
Nicole laughed out loud at that one.
“—he’s single and so are you. You’re in the same house. What’s the downside here?”
Frowning, Nicole looked at her friend. Sandy was married to her high school love, had three kids and ran a successful business. As far as Nicole could see, she pretty much had it all. Except, apparently, the power to talk Nicole out of doing something she really wanted to do.